Seattle's Pulitzer-winning cartoonist David Horsey's latest cartoons and commentary on politics and current events

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Job creators…

It has been the case for a long time that modern-day politicians are barely able to speak unless they have memorized a set of talking points pre-approved and vetted by a team of spin doctors. It’s especially easy to detect this homogenizing influence when a new euphemism repeatedly pops up in the comments of an entire political caucus.

The current case in point: “job creators.”

That seems to be the only two-word description authorized when Republicans make reference to the one percent of Americans who have benefited most from big tax cuts, who have not suffered much from the Great Recession and who control most of the nation’s wealth. Such wordplay makes perfect sense at a moment when the GOP majority in the House is blocking any part of a debt ceiling deal that would spike the tax bill of high income earners. After all, it sounds so much nobler to decry “raising the tax burden on job creators” than to say “let’s preserve tax loopholes for greedy Wall Street billionaires and oil companies.” (Besides, “greedy Wall Street billionaires and oil companies” is a phrase Democrats have already trademarked.)

“Job creators” is a clever choice of words because what reasonable American doesn’t want jobs to be created? There’s nothing this country needs more than restoration of the millions of jobs lost when Wall Street billionaires – oops! I mean, job creators — got way too creative with the nation’s financial system. Plus, the words reinforce Tea Party orthodoxy that the only thing standing between us and a healthy economy are those gosh darn high taxes that are keeping job creators from creating jobs.

Of course, like many orthodoxies, this one does not necessarily stand up to simple reason. If tax hikes kill jobs and tax cuts create jobs, why did Bill Clinton’s 1993 tax increase lead to a booming economy and a balanced budget in the 1990s while George Bush’s deep tax cuts in 2001 brought us to the mess we are in today?

The answer is… well, the answer is actually complex. In neither case did tax policy alone produce the result. And failure to understand the limited importance of taxes has got today’s Republicans so tied up in one big knot that they cannot bring themselves to accept a debt ceiling deal that goes farther than anything conservatives of past generations would have dreamed they could finagle from a Democratic president.

In economic terms, taxes are just one of many tools at the disposal of governments to tweak the economy and keep the nation solvent. Sometimes, it has been helpful to lower taxes; sometime it has been helpful to raise taxes (Ronald Reagan, as president, did it three times). Yes, sometimes taxes can get too high, but they can also be so low that the government cannot pay for the things congresses and presidents authorize, like Medicare and Social Security and wars and veterans benefits. Then, we end up with even more debt.

Since debt is what the Tea Party enthusiasts claim to hate the most, you would think they would approve of bumping up taxes on the richest Americans as part of a plan to reduce the red ink. But, no, they insist. That would hurt job creators.

Well, guess what? The job creators have plenty of money. Corporate profits are huge. Banks are flush with cash. Yet, they are sitting on their money instead of creating jobs. There are several reasons why no hiring or lending is going on, but it has nothing to do with taxes being too high.

A cynic would say Republicans are not really concerned with cutting the debt or creating jobs, since all the things they oppose – improved regulation of the financial industry, environmental safeguards, consumer protection, climate change legislation, jobless benefits, expanded health care, as well as closing tax loopholes – are things that are opposed by lobbyists who represent one particular class of people. And it just so happens that those are the people who own everything, not the people who have seen their paychecks stagnate or who have lost their jobs.

But, I choose not to be cynical. Even though I think their prescription for curing what ails America is pure voodoo, I will accept that Tea party Republicans actually believe what they are saying.

Note: This is a seattlepi.com reader blog. It is not written or edited by the P-I. The authors are solely responsible for content. E-mail us at newmedia@seattlepi.com if you consider a post inappropriate..